[Tweeters] Tweeters] rare birds are too conspicuous!

[Michael Price]

Hey tweets

Scene: a flooded plowed field at the south end of 104th St at Boundary Bay
BC., January.

Close to the road a fairly large, dark first-cycle Glaucous Gull and a Def
Basic Slaty-backed*, both winter rarities in Van BC (though at the time,
early Nineties, the Slaty was the far rarer) were fossicking about
agreeably almost shoulder-to-shoulder in a large puddle. We  all happily
watched them for about twenty minutes when another winter rarity suddenly
appeared, this one with intent, a grey-morph Gyrfalcon coming in low and
hot from the east, which, ignoring the Glaucous and all the GW's and Olies
in the flock, singled out the Slaty and took a serious rip at it it,
missed, and flew on.

Likewise a few winters on in Ladner BC, where an overwintering Cattle Egret
and a bunch of GW's and Olies were foraging in a pasture, and a (possibly
same) Gyr suddenly boomed in at fence-top level and went for the egret
specifically. It barely missed and went over our heads close enough we
(field trip---lifer sighting for some!) all could hear the *whoof*ing of
its wingbeats. Nothing if not discerning, those gyrfalcons...

best, m

*we were seeing the Slaty in late-afternoon light: looking at the bird
itself, its mantle didn't seem particularly dark---*occidentalis *Western dark
maybe (and therefore easier to miss)---but its reflection in the water
showed how much darker it *actually* was. Unfortunately for us, we didn't
have Sir Isaac on hand to explain the optical science of it all for us.
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